Romance
by love comes and goes
Summary: Damon learns a lesson in relationships.


**The End**

When Caroline returned home, it was to find all of Damon's things trashed. It was quite the jarring setting; bottles, the TV, and laptop broken with the tattered remains spread out throughout the room, while her belongings remained immaculate and untouched. Fearing that something absolutely terrible had occurred, a shiver of dread ran throughout her body as her eyes raked her place.

"Fix this Caroline." Stefan appeared, his voice a mixture of tiredness and relief.

"What happened?" Caroline asked with a rush of air.

"You know this is how Damon deals with his emotions." Stefan left her with the cryptic parting. He sounded angry on his brother's behalf. For the life of her she couldn't understand why.

Dropping her luggage, she carefully walked into Damon's bedroom. Caroline found Damon sitting on the ground with his back pressed up against the wall with various bottles surrounding him and a half empty bourbon in his hand.

"Back for the rest of your stuff?" Damon lazily stated, quite clearly plastered.

"What the hell is up?" Caroline asked bluntly.

"I came home and you were gone. Story of my life." Damon snorted and took a gulp his liquor. Caroline snatched it away from him and sternly led him to the shower where she bathed him, then back to the bedroom to sit on the bed with a towel wrapped around his waist while she fetched some blood.

* * *

Damon let Caroline do as she wanted in a haze. She was here, but that didn't mean much of anything anymore. His heart was broken and the way he dealt with that was by going on a rampage. Stefan probably managed to get a message through to her and she was here to set him straight and dump him properly. Not that they were a couple or anything.

Except that he probably loved her.

Sobering up wasn't exactly hard, but he was starting to get so nervous that he was unconsciously doing it in a last ditch effort to save face. The thought of Blondie leaving him a second time wasn't appealing at all. He was going to make her stay—some how.

Caroline quietly returned, force feeding him the AB positive blood. He glared at her and she simply watched him with a raised eyebrow. This wasn't like her at all and it reinforced their... separation. Of a sort.

"Bonnie called me," Caroline stated after a long stretch of silence.

"...Doesn't she hate you?" Damon muttered tactlessly. He nearly smirked when he saw her eyebrow twitch in irritation.

"Apparently she was pregnant and about to pop soon and she just had to apologize and have me there for the birth of her first child. I dropped everything to go to her and—you thought I was _leaving you!_" Caroline snapped and stood, pacing around the room with her hands waving around crazily. Damon never felt so relieved, even if it came with a dash of whiplash. The relief was short lived.

"First of all, we have to be together for me to actually leave you—maybe then I would have told you where I was going. You always said that this didn't mean anything, that living together could have some benefits. Who the _fuck_ are you to suddenly care and go crazy just because I left for two weeks you selfish _bastard. _You can't change your mind about things on whim and decide you wanna be with me just because I was gone for a little while doing absolutely nothing wrong—"

"But I did change my mind because you were gone." Damon cut her off and flashed before her in a fit of vampire speed, making her jump back in her surprise. He grabbed Caroline's arms before she could get very far. "It made me realize how much I missed you and did make me decide that I want to be with you because, as it turns out... _I'm in love with you_," he finished angrily.

"You're an asshole," she replied with a pregnant pause. Damon smirked humorlessly. Damn that hurt a lot more than he wanted to let on. Except she looked down at the ground before smiling coyly up at him through her lashes. "Why am I in love with you again?"

"...What's not to love?" he retorted, opening his arms in a come hither motion. Caroline rolled her eyes before wrapping her arms around his chest and burying her face in the crook of his neck, trying stubbornly to keep the huge smile off her face. Damon was having trouble doing the same.

"You're cooking tonight," she said, once she managed to stop smiling like a fool.

"Alright," Damon conceded quickly.

"You're cooking every night we don't go out on the amazing dates that you will be taking me to for being such a dumbass wishy-washy that made me wait for so long. You are treating me like a princess, taking me shopping, and we're holding hands and being really romantic in public, _and_ we are a having lots and lots of _sex_."

Despite the latter, Damon groaned.

* * *

**This is was I got starzee. I don't think I got your prompt exactly. T.T**

**In fact, this will be a three part story to hopefully fulfill starzee's wishes. Reading the chapter title will help you understand the time-line... or confuse you. You're kind of taking a leap of faith when you read my stories. **


End file.
